Sam Allardyce once thought he would never get the England job because he did not have a fancy-sounding surname. He thought he was too northern, too unfashionable, too egg and chips. He drank ale and he chewed gum, sometimes at the same time. "Maybe I should change my name to Allardici," he suggested.

He was doing himself a disservice, of course. When Allardyce sat behind the bulging in-tray in his office yesterday, setting out his plans to knock Arsenal out of the FA Cup, it was as the bookmakers' favourite to succeed Sven-Goran Eriksson as the next England manager. Big Sam is probably the people's choice too and he's done it all without access to deed poll. One supporters' poll has him taking nearly twice the votes of any other Englishman.

The only surprise is that anyone should still be surprised. Last season Allardyce was the highest-placed English manager, with Bolton squatting defiantly in sixth position. This season they have lasted longer in Europe than Manchester United, with Marseille to come in the last 32 of the Uefa Cup. They lie seventh in the Premiership, with games in hand. "Teams are starting to play like Bolton because they know it can get them results," he says with great pride, "and that's a great testament to us."

Now that the most important part of the England job seems to be breaking bread with journalists, there is another tick in his box too. Allardyce, a popular man in Fleet Street, could talk for, well, England when a microphone is switched on, and even when his views are controversial he is not afraid to air them. "Theo Walcott's gone to Arsenal for £6m going up to, what, £12m?" he says at one point. "There was a Walcott round every corner 20 years ago in England, Scotland and Ireland."

He does not subscribe to Paul Jewell's view that the England job "comes with too much nonsense attached". True, it would be difficult for him to have his usual Sunday pint or three at his local in Bromley Cross. And his wife Lynne might not take too kindly to paparazzi snapping her on her weekly run to Aldi. Allardyce is maintaining a diplomatic silence, yet word has it he would walk to Soho Square for an interview.

One certainty, after the bland politeness of Eriksson, is that the English public is hankering for a manager who wears his emotions on his sleeve and Allardyce certainly fits the bill. Big Sam is not like Eriksson, going by the word of one of his former Notts County players that "he does not take any shit". He is perpetually irritated, for example, by the tagging of his side as a modern-day Wimbledon and the sniping of fellow managers such as Liverpool's Rafael Benítez and Arsenal's Arsène Wenger, with whom there will be little cordiality today.

"Every time we play Arsenal you can guarantee that Wenger will talk about our physical side. I don't get too upset because when he's complaining about us it means we've beaten them, so I wouldn't want that to end. But it's worth pointing out that, when I first got into the Premier League, it was the size of the Arsenal side that rammed it home to me just how scary it was. I looked at David Seaman, Sol Campbell, Martin Keown, Patrick Vieira - not just six-footers, but six foot two, three or four. In their heyday Arsenal were as physical as anyone.

"Liverpool have gone that way now too. They're much bigger and much more physical than we are. They play off Peter Crouch as much as we play off Kevin Davies but the difference, of course, is that theirs is a 'long pass' whereas ours is a 'long ball'. They've got Steven Gerrard, Momo Sissoko, Dietmar Hamann and Jamie Carragher who can mix it with anyone. Yet Liverpool won't get the same tag as us because they're Liverpool, aren't they?"

His banks of calm were infamously burst a few weeks ago by some more barbs about Bolton's tactics, this time from Alan Green on his Radio 5 Live phone-in. BBC reporters were subsequently banned from Bolton press conferences until Moz Dee, commissioning editor of 5 Live, rang Allardyce last week.

"You will always pick up on people who discriminate against you," he reflects. "But there's more in the media about us that's positive than negative. There are a lot of people who say a lot of good things about us and I haven't lost sight of that. It's the same inside the industry too. People want to know how we do it on such a restricted budget and, most of all, how we've done it for so long. It reaches the stage where we have to keep some of our ideas a closely guarded secret. But the key elements are that we're fit - fitter than most certainly - and we're as detailed and efficient as anyone technically."

As a player, Allardyce was the old-fashioned, broken-nosed epitome of the Seventies centre-half. "He was what I called a ball-playing defender," Dave Bassett once said. "If he wasn't playing with the ball, he was playing with your balls."

Now 51, he still retains that fearsome edge but there are layers to his personality. Beneath the thick-set, gravel-voiced exterior lurks one of the most innovative managers in the English game. Allardyce led the Prozone generation. He was preaching about ice baths, electrolytes, replacement fluids and potassium when most dressing rooms had nothing more hi-tech than a magic sponge. "It's always fascinated me, right back to when I was a player. Everyone would have a cup of tea at half-time, whereas I knew about diuretics and that you should never drink tea before going back out. So I would sneak to the back and have a glass of iced water on my own."

A short while ago he decided it was time to get a hobby, something to take his mind off the strains of football. "I started going to art galleries and I spoke to art dealers. I wanted something totally different to football and art interested me. The only problem is that art needs so much work and research if you are going to do it properly. It's not something you can just dabble in.

"What excites me now is learning about people. How, for example, does Richard Branson evolve into the mega-millionaire businessman that he is? I've been to seminars and I've invited people into the club to speak to the staff. I read autobiographies but I would sooner listen to people. That's what fascinates me."

The worry for Bolton is that they will collapse like a house of cards should he leave. In this part of Lancashire it is not necessarily the England job that worries them but the possibility of a vacancy arising at Newcastle United. Allardyce, art enthusiast and football manager, no longer has the image problem of old, even without a fancy surname.

How Bolton have the edge over Arsenal at the Reebok, by Mike Anstead

Bolton 2 Arsenal 0, Premiership, December 3 2005

First-half goals from Abdoulaye Faye and Stelios Giannakopoulos ended Arsenal's title ambitions before Christmas. An unimpressed Arsène Wenger said: "We had a bad day. This was a frail and tentative performance. Bolton's commitment was superior and no matter how good you are, the first thing you must show is commitment. We were getting beaten in areas of the game where we could not afford to lose the battle."

Bolton 1 Arsenal 1, Premiership, December 20 2003

Henrik Pedersen came off the bench to equalise late on against the league leaders. Robert Pires had put the visitors ahead but Bolton were superior and dominated possession. "This [Bolton] team was a lot more technical and played better football," Wenger said. "Last season we lost the whole season in one day here. At the end of this season this could be seen as a good point." He was proved right as Arsenal secured the title.

Bolton 2 Arsenal 2, Premiership, April 26 2003

Youri Djorkaeff inspired Bolton to battle back from two goals down and secure a draw. Arsenal fell apart in the second half, but Arsène Wenger denied that his team was not mentally strong enough. "It is rubbish to say the pressure got to us," he said. "I will stand by these players in any situation. People who say my team have bowed to the pressure are childish. We are disappointed, and rightly so, because we have made things difficult for ourselves."

Bolton 0 Arsenal 1, FA Cup quarter-final, March 12 2005

Freddie Ljungberg's goal and the dismissal of El Hadji Diouf for lashing out at Jens Lehmann within the opening nine minutes confirmed Arsenal's place in the semi-finals. "It was hard work. If we were not resilient and not determined, we would have gone out," said Wenger, who questioned Bolton's aggressive approach. "You know what to expect when you come here. The sending-off of Diouf did not change the way they played."

Bolton 1 Arsenal 0, Premiership, January 15 2005

Arsenal lacked the appetite to compete with Bolton and Stelios Giannakopoulos, right, headed the winner to finish the Gunners' lingering hopes of catching Chelsea. "I feel that we lacked determined effort in the final third of the field and didn't show much security in our defending," Wenger said. "We have pressure every week. If you don't want to live with pressure, you don't want to win championships."